Salehi dismisses Israeli military threat, PM's 'red lines'

If Israel had plans to attack Iran then the Jewish state would have done so already, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in an interview with Germany's Der Speigel published Monday.

When asked about the "red line" on Iran's nuclear program delineated by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly, Salehi dismissed the Israeli leader's presentation as "bizarre," saying it was "childish to hold up a caricature of a bomb."

Salehi added that "if the Israelis had wanted to attack us, and if they could have done so, they would have done so long ago. In 1981, they destroyed an Iraqi reactor without warning, but they have been threatening us for years, on every occasion and publicly."

Salehi warned that Israel "knows what would happen if they attacked.... Aggressors will pay a high price."

Responding to a question regarding the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program, as outlined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its latest report, Salehi insisted that Tehran has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and that "there is no proof that we are pursuing nuclear research for military purposes."